MSNBC

Sometimes liberal bias goes so far it actually becomes absurd, like Roseanne Barr saying that she would bring back the guillotine in order to behead any rich people who wanted to keep more than $100 million of their own money. She set the bar (or the guillotine) higher than her $80 million net worth. But it wasn’t just extreme left-wing celebs like Roseanne and Michael Moore, news anchors and hosts have spewed anti-business, anti-wealth, or anti-capitalism nonsense too.

The Business and Media Institute hunted down some of the most outrageous anti-business, anti-wealth, or anti-capitalism comments by news and entertainment media people in the past year and came up with this list of eight individuals. After all, it is April Fools Day.

[April 2 update post: See which quotes were real and which were fake]

The latest edition of MRC's Notable Quotables newsletter (PDF) has just been posted over at MRC.org, a special "Matthews Mega-Meltdown Edition." In this issue: our favorite MSNBC host drools over the “perfect” Barack Obama, hailing the “amazing economy” Obama has delivered to America and lobbying for the new Pope Francis to bring an Obama-esque “hope and change” regime to the Catholic Church.

At the same time, Chris decries the “racism” of opposing anything Obama proposes; wonders if Republicans will switch to “sexism” if Hillary Clinton becomes the top Democrat in 2016; and sees an anti-Michele Bachmann message in Robert Frost’s poem, “The Witch of Coos.” Oh, and Chris insists: “Hardball is absolutely non-partisan.” You can read highlights after the jump; the whole package of 21 outrageous quotes is at www.MRC.org.

MSNBC not only grants its openly gay anchor Thomas Roberts a platform where he can advocate for his pet LGBT causes every weekday morning. Roberts appeared as a guest on The Cycle on Wednesday afternoon from the Supreme Court steps to offer his personal feelings about the Supreme Court cases being argued.  Roberts drew supportive laughter about gay marriage when he said "I highly recommend it," but he wanted the Court to rule 9-0 in favor of the gay Left, as it did in the Sixties on interracial marriage.

Toure wanted Roberts to explain why "marriage" was a magic word that insures social approval of homosexuality: (Video below)

[UPDATED: See below.] Chris Matthews on Thursday took a break from comparing conservatives to Nazis and instead compared them to movie Nazis. The Hardball anchor opened the program by referencing the classic movie Casablanca. In this example, Barack Obama is the good guy and the Second Amendment supporters are the Nazis.

Matthews spewed, "You know that scene in Casablanca when the French police captain shoots the Nazi, Major Strasser, and Humphrey Bogart does the right thing by Ingrid Bergman, and the anti-Nazi hero Victor Laszlo says 'Welcome back to the fight, Rick'?" In case anyone was unclear on the comparison, the liberal journalist added, "Well, I felt that way today watching President Obama get back to the front in the historic battle for gun safety." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

Legendary South African leader Nelson Mandela is in the hospital today with a lung infection, and MSNBC could not resist using the occasion to compare President Obama to Mr. Mandela. During a discussion with Time managing editor Richard Stengel on her daily program, Andrea Mitchell showed a picture of then-Senator Obama visiting South Africa’s first black president in 2005. Mitchell cooed, “You can imagine the role that Mandela played just in the imagination of a young Barack Obama and all of his generation.”

Stengel picked up on that thread. “And I think, you know, there are similarities between President Obama and Nelson Mandela, I think, in terms of their temperament, in terms of their approach to problems as pragmatists.” [Video after the jump. MP3 audio here.]

In a cozy radical-to-radical interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on Wednesday, incoming MSNBC primetime host Chris Hayes announced he’s watched Bill O’Reilly “very, very, very little...I’m positive I have never watched an hour of the O’Reilly show.”

Hayes is going to pretend that Fox News and MSNBC aren’t really competitors at all: “I genuinely don’t think of myself as in competition with Bill O’Reilly.” They don’t have the same “pool of viewers.” Hayes sounded like he meant “gene pool.” He can’t “hate-watch” conservative programs like some liberals do:

Compared to other MSNBC personalities, Luke Russert is usually rather restrained when it comes to his biases. But on Wednesday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, the son of the late Tim Russert could not hold back the condescension in his interview with Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council. [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Perkins gave an eloquent defense of traditional marriage, but Russert wasn’t having any of it. In his mind, as in many liberal minds, opposition to same-sex marriage must surely stem from fear. So Russert prodded Perkins:

According to contemporary reports, as here and here, Egyptian protesters who pelted the motorcade of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with tomatoes during her visit to Egypt last July were chanting "Monica! Monica!"  

So who did Al Sharpton, on his MSNBC show this evening, blame for the tomato pelting? Why, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann, of course!  According to the Reverend Al, it was the raising by Beck and Bachmann of the possible connection of Hillary's top aide, Huma Abedin, to the Muslim Brotherhood that outraged the Egyptian horde. Sharpton says "there is absolutely nothing" to back the claims of Abedin family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That is simply false, as this National Review item documents. View the video after the jump.

Nazis are fast becoming the favorite slur of the hosts on MSNBC. Chris Matthews last Friday compared the "aggressive" push for war in Iraq to what lead to the prosecution of war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. Matthews appeared with Chris Hayes, Alex Wagner and other MSNBC regulars to discuss a new cable documentary on the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war.

After reading a congratulatory reading of a column he wrote prior to the war, Matthews lashed out: "I was really embarrassed by my country, how a President of such limited ability, limited rhetorical ability, mental ability, historic ability, could talk us into a war." Making one of his favorite comparisons, the Hardball anchor sneered, "You know, the Nuremberg trials were primarily, before the Holocaust and all those other issues, was against people who launched an aggressive war. And this was an aggressive war." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] So, in this example, George W. Bush is one of the Nazis? 

There's been plenty of serious analysis of the the gay marriage cases before the Supreme Court.  Maybe it's time for some comic relief . .  .

Appearing on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show this evening, MSNBC contributor Jimmy Williams took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia's musing whether if states can't prohibit gay marriage, they can ban bestiality.  Describing himself as "a certified, organic homosexual," Williams declared "I have a dog, but I've never had sex with my dog." View the video after the jump.

MSNBC’s Toure Neblett last weekend mocked Dr. Benjamin Carson as a token “black friend” to Republicans admired only to “assuage their guilt” for past racial indiscretions.

On Fox News’s America Live Tuesday, Carson struck back at his liberal media critics saying that he’s no “Uncle Tom” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

On the March 26 episode of Morning Joe, guest host Nicolle Wallace dusted off the issue of mental health reform, which has long been ignored by liberals in the media as regards the national debate over gun control. Wallace cited NY Times columnist David Brooks’ March 25 piece on gun violence.  The piece focused on how Americans like to focus on the gun, instead of human nature – and how the “acquisition” of the weapon is subject to the least influence from policymakers in Washington.  

It seemed that for a short while, the panel was in agreement that we don’t talk enough about the evil inherent in Adam Lanza's deadly mass shooting in Newtown Then again, Lanza was mentally ill, which brought things back to Wallace’s point (emphasis mine):

The liberal media's push for gun control has long included the tactic of attempting to shame the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun rights activists into silence. That tactic was once again deployed by MSNBC's Thomas Roberts this morning in his interview with liberal Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), who is calling on the nation's oldest civil rights organization to cease and desist robocalls to phone numbers in the Newtown, Connecticut, area.

At no point in the softball interview, however, was it mentioned that some Newtown parents like Mark Mattioli and Bill Stevens have testified in opposition to fresh gun control laws nor that there's been a spike in applications for gun permits in Newtown following the mass shooting, perhaps because those facts cut against the notion that the entire Newtown area is anti-NRA as a result of December's tragedy.

Don't tell us that Al Sharpton and MSNBC are hypocrites?  Noooo!!  The Reverend Al opened his show by praising President Obama's efforts to promote tougher gun control laws.  But 28 minutes into the show, a commercial appeared for, of all things  . . . Henry Repeating Rifles.  

Go to Henry Rifle's website and you'll find one rifle described as "big, brutal and beautiful" and noting that it fires ammunition "said to have killed more game, big and small, and more men, good and bad, than any other in existence."  Another model offered for sale, the AR-7, is based on a military rifle, Henry emphasizing that given its lightweight design "you can carry a large quantity of ammunition."  Oh the horror!  View the video after the jump.

If the New Republic's Rebecca Dana is correct, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is more deluded than anyone thought.

In her lengthy piece about MSNBC president Phil Griffin, Dana claimed Maddow believes the reason President Obama hasn't given the cable network an interview since 2008 is because "his people know he’s going to get asked difficult questions":

As NewsBusters reported last month, Barack Obama senior adviser David Axelrod is now working for MSNBC.

According to a lengthy article about network president Phil Griffin published at the New Republic Monday, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams helped recruit Axelrod:

Letting down her guard on the Lean Forward network, Politico's Lois Romano, ostensibly an objective journalist, descended into biased -- and racially conscious -- commentary.  Appearing on MSNBC’s NewsNation on March 25, Romano made disparaging comments of the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre.

Speaking with host Tamron Hall -- who happens to be African-American -- Romano suggested that Wayne LaPierre is, “looking like a tired old white guy that is clinging on to something of the past.”  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.] 

Chris Matthews’ week of hateful speech concluded on March 23 with the liberal MSNBC host going after Tea Party favorite Rep. Michele Bachmann. 

Speaking on Friday, Matthews disgustingly, albeit all too predictably asserted that Bachmann’s criticism of President Obama was motivated by racist beliefs.  [See video after jump.  MP3 audio here.]

On Morning Joe today, the Reverend Al Sharpton agreed with Mike Barnicle  that anti-Semitism explains the opposition to Mike Bloomberg in his gun control campaign. H/t NB reader cobokat.

If ever there were an expert on anti-Semitism in America, it could be Al Sharpton, he of Freddie's Fashion Mart and Crown Heights riot infamy. The spectacle of Sharpton lamenting the supposed anti-Semitism of others was ironic, if not repulsive.  Note that Dan Senor, who might also know something about anti-Semitism, being Jewish and having attended university in Israel, rejected the notion.  View the video after the jump.

The left-wing righteousness was heavy in the air on Tuesday, the tenth anniversary of the U.S. war starting in Iraq. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow booked Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) to decry all the lies told to Congress and the American people about the intelligence out of Iraq. Conservatives aren't just hostage-takers on taxes or the sequester.

Duckworth called the run-up to war a "hostage situation," since members of Congress were "being threatened and had their patriotism questioned." That sounds just like the anti-conservative blather from then-MSNBC president Erik Sorenson in the early weeks of the war in Afghanistan in 2001: "Any misstep and you can get into trouble with these guys and have the Patriotism Police hunt you down." Here's how Maddow spurred the latest conservative-hostage-takers metaphor:

UPDATE:  For a brilliant, clear and concise takedown of Harris-Perry's comments, have a listen to the analysis of Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in this podcast.  The discussion comes about 8:25 in and lasts about five minutes.

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. Melissa Harris-Perry is clearly a member of the "blob of cells" brigade when it comes to her disregard for unborn human life.  On her MSNBC show this morning, MH-P repeatedly revealed how little respect she has for life in its early forms.  

At one point, Harris-Perry callously spoke of how much it costs "to have this thing turn into a human." H/t NB reader Ray R. View the video after the jump.

Call it Michael Moore's Jesse Jackson moment . . . Jackson once famously said that when he walked down the street and heard footsteps behind him, he was relieved to turn around and find a white person behind him.

This evening, on Ed Schultz's soon-to-be-extinct weeknight MSNBC show, a histrionic Michael Moore accused white gun owners of racism . . . then proceeded to say it was reasonable for them not to be afraid of their white neighbors  . . . and admitted he felt more comfortable walking down the streets of Toronto than Detroit. View the video after the jump.

Chris Matthews’ liberal activism reached new heights on March 21 surrounding his push for greater gun control legislation.  Speaking during the opening segment for Hardball, Matthews provided his audience with email addresses and phone numbers to members of Congress, telling them that:

For all those who care about gun safety, let me repeat what I said last night, get a hold of your Senator and Member of Congress and say you want a real background check on people who buy guns.  [See video after jump.]

MSNBC's Chris Matthews is the "real face of character assassination," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell argued on the March 21 edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity program. The Media Research Center founder and president reacted to just the latest instance of the Hardball host bashing Tea Party conservatives as racist, xenophobic, and anti-gay. "On Monday night, he was so off on his attacks on CPAC" that the non-partisan media criticism site Mediaite.com "called it grossly unfair and inaccurate." Two nights later, Matthews practically wrote off as insufficiently black African-American politicians like Mia Love, Herman Cain, former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who identify strongly with the Tea Party movement.

Also discussed on the "Media Mash" segment was a new Pew survey showing MSNBC is 85 percent commentary to 15 percent news reporting [watch the full Mash segment below the page break].

Ten years ago, the perilously liberal talk show host Phil Donahue was fired by MSNBC.

In an interview with HuffPostLive Thursday, Donahue spoke candidly about what led to his termination including his frosty relationship with Chris Matthews who he felt was threatened by him.

Zurprise, zurprise: Zbig wouldn't go to war to stop Iran getting nukes.  On Morning Joe today, Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser had some advice for President Obama: tell Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that America will not go to war against Iran.

Attacking Iran's nuclear facilities would surely be an act of war. Yet doing so might well be the only way to prevent the ayatollahs from getting the A-bomb. Unfortunately, neither Joe Scarborough nor anyone else on the panel including daughter Mika asked Brzezinski flat out whether he would encourage America to stand by while Iran got nukes.  But it's hard to  intepret his words otherwise.  And of course, Zbig is the man who called for the U.S. to shoot down Israeli warplanes on the way to Iran. View the video after the jump.

Two days after Chris Matthews and fellow MSNBCer Joy-Ann Reid suggested that participants at the annual CPAC supported segregation, the liberal host was back at it on March 20.  Matthews brought on two liberal guests to slam the Tea Party for its “racist” and “xenophobic” mentality.    

Speaking with his guests on Wednesday’s Hardball, Matthews asked: